Wei Zhiping led his brother-in-law out of the office, and a woman's voice reminded them from behind:

"Director Wei! Your phone number is here; the provincial department is looking for you."

Wei Zhiping and Zheng Hongkuan exchanged glances. The former's eyes held a suppressed expectation, while the latter's joy was more obvious. "Brother-in-law, is there any news about that matter?"

The Wei family occupies a dominant position in the provincial capital. Before the old man retires from his post, he must promote the eldest son of the Wei family. This is where the news comes from.

Wei Zhiping gave him a "shut up" look, and the two went to the next office one after the other to answer the phone, deliberately lowering their voices to suppress their excitement:

"This is Wei Zhiping. How can I help you?"

After hearing what was said over there, Wei Zhiping's face visibly darkened.

She glanced subtly at her brother-in-law, who was eagerly awaiting her arrival, then slowly bent her back and uttered several "I know"s.

After hanging up the phone, he returned to his office without a word, grabbed a desk calendar, and smashed it against Zheng Hongkuan's forehead, his voice laced with barely suppressed anger:

"Tell me! What trouble have you gotten yourself into? Tell me everything that happened today, without embellishing anything."

Zheng Hongkuan's fat belly trembled violently from the shadowy look and aura of his brother-in-law.

No longer daring to hide it, he confessed in detail how he had embezzled a translator's bonus and design, and finally said:

"I almost got hit by a Jeep with a 01 license plate on my way here. What bad luck!"

"You said the license plate 01, and a car coming from the capital almost hit you?" Wei Zhiping asked, squinting his eyes. After receiving an affirmative answer, he connected the cause and effect.

As he gasped, his gaze towards the factory manager's brother-in-law changed; this time, he'd really bitten off more than he could chew!

Feeling chills run down his spine under his chilling gaze, Zheng Hongkuan swallowed hard and asked, "Wh-what's wrong?"

Recalling the contents of the phone call he had just received, Wei Zhiping remained silent for a long time. He then placed his hands on the table, looked up, and said meaningfully:

"Go back and clean up the mess as soon as possible. Tell Xiaohui and the two children to go back to their parents' home for a couple of days. The old man misses his grandson too."

If Zheng Hongkuan still couldn't understand what he was saying, then all his years as factory director had been for nothing. He slumped back into his chair, his lips trembling.

"How could this be? How could this happen?"

With a cold tone, Wei Zhiping picked up his teacup and saw the guest out: "I have other things to do, you should go back to your post!"

...

Zheng Hongkuan rode his bicycle erratically all the way, but finally sped up to the third floor at the fastest speed he had ever seen, first destroying a small booklet hidden in the shadows to cover his tracks.

As he paced back and forth on the cement ground with his hands behind his back, recalling his brother-in-law's meaningful gaze and the veiled reminder of sending his wife back to the Wei family, his heart began to pound wildly.

I left the office and found the accountant, explaining that I needed to check the accounts for the first half of the year.

The accountant looked at him strangely. The first half of the year wasn't even over yet, so what was there to check?

After rudely driving the man away, Zheng Hongkuan left looking dejected, and Guan Yan emerged from the shadows.

The accountant closed the small window and asked Guan Yan with a look that seemed to say, "Has something happened?"

"Deputy factory director, the factory director really did come to ask for the accounting books, just like you said. Is something bad going to happen to the factory?"

Guan Yan patted the accountant's shoulder firmly, "It's nothing serious, I'll give you the day off, go home early today."

The guards were all Zheng Hongkuan's confidants. Guan Yan directly found a few of her own loading and unloading workers, and had half of them keep an eye on the archives room, while the other half hid near the finance office.

"Keep your eyes peeled tonight, I've received word that someone is planning to sabotage the ledgers."

Be especially careful of open flames. If anyone acting suspiciously approaches, apprehend them immediately. Do you understand?

At present, enemy agents often go to various large factories to carry out sabotage, and all important places need to be guarded at night by special personnel. The stevedores were not surprised to hear the deputy factory director's arrangement.

He promised to keep watch throughout the night.

Back in her office, Guan Yan looked uneasy at the man behind her desk, who was flipping through the factory's accounts from the past two years. She asked:

"Would the factory manager really set a fire tonight?"

The setting sun cast a striking orange glow on the man's short hair. He looked up from the accounts, revealing Miyano's handsome yet sharp features.

He closed an account book from February of last year, looked up, and his eyes held an unyielding darkness: "If it were me, I would."

Guan Yan's breath hitched. This was it. This was the look in Ruan's eyes that made him look not only seriously ill but also a little crazy. She was sure she had seen it in Ruan's eyes that morning.

The old folks often say that two kinds of people can't sleep in the same bed, and she believed it!

As darkness fell and the last rays of the setting sun disappeared behind the clouds, textile factory workers filed out, heading off in twos and threes in different directions.

By the time it was completely dark, most of the factory workers had left, except for those on night duty and the police.

With a gloomy expression, Factory Director Zheng turned back, used his spare key to open a small, long-unused door in the textile factory, and returned inside.

To make the act convincing, he first went back to his office, retrieved the spare key to the entire factory that he had deliberately left there to avoid being discovered, and then, biting a flashlight, found the key in the accounting office.

My hands were shaking uncontrollably, and cold sweat was streaming down my forehead.

Looking back, he was once a diligent and dedicated factory director who worked tirelessly for the factory and the organization, single-handedly propelling the textile factory to become a leading enterprise in Heilongjiang Province.

Back then, everyone who saw him would respectfully call him Director Zheng from the bottom of their hearts.

When exactly did it change?

Looking at the key tray hanging prominently on the wall, Zheng Hongkuan thought, "It's probably from after I married my current wife."

He lost his wife in his thirties and never imagined that he could get married to his childhood crush, his classmate.

Not only is her deskmate academically excellent and beautiful, but she is also the beloved youngest daughter of the Wei family. Even though both of them are in their second marriages, they have a happy marriage and two sons.

The first time I made a mistake... I remember it was when my wife, who had just given birth, tearfully told me that if her father didn't get promoted, he would have to retire.

People come and go, and their first child has just been born. If the father-in-law could get a promotion, the son would have a better and brighter future.

It was from that time on that, in order to help his father-in-law with his connections and for the sake of his children and grandchildren's uncertain future, he betrayed the textile factory that his teacher had personally entrusted to him.

The wooden door creaked open, and Zheng Hongkuan, his face grim, silently entered the second floor. But before he even reached the finance office, a loud shout suddenly echoed from the end of the corridor:

Who's there in the middle of the night?

After a day of repeated frights, Zheng Hongkuan nearly collapsed to the ground. He used his familiarity with the textile factory's layout to quickly shake off his pursuers.

He crouched in the shadows of the flowerbed, his gloomy face adding to his anxiety, a homemade Molotov cocktail clutched in his palm.

His gaze fell on the finance office on the second floor, as if he had made up his mind. "It's better to die than to die, my fellow Daoists. You all forced me to this."

The Molotov cocktail shattered the glass with a crash, landing steadily on the floor of the finance office and breaking apart, its contents of alcohol splattering everywhere.

Then, with overwhelming force, the flames quickly engulfed the entire room...